You're going to buy some gifts online this holiday season, right? You and about 23 million others, according to a study by the Boston Consulting Group.

But you're not going to buy the gifts listed in The 12 Days of Christmas because, believe it or not, technology has advanced too far to get all those goods and services over the Internet. Don't blame the 'Net. Blame milking machines.

I set out to discover whether it was possible to buy the presents mentioned in the holiday song, using only the Web and e-mail. No using the phone or regular mail.

The result: You can buy at least nine of the gifts, and probably two others if you can find dance instructors who will answer their e-mail. But you can't find eight maids a-milking.

I tried unsuccessfully to find anyone who hand-milks cows. It turns out that technology has rendered old-fashioned dairy farming obsolete. Even Amish people milk cows mechanically. I couldn't find nine ladies dancing or 10 lords a-leaping, either, but I suspect I could have, given enough time. But extra time was a luxury I didn't give myself, this being the busiest buying time of the year.

The grand total for my gifts was $11,778.95. That price doesn't include hiring milkmaids, dancing ladies or leaping lords, but it does include 10 powdered wigs. After all, a guy jumping around is just a guy jumping around -- but if he's wearing a powdered wig, he's a leaping lord.

I didn't include the costs of shipping and transportation because they would vary depending on where you live and how fast you want stuff.

Some Web sites mentioned here are designed better than others. I drew the line at sites that automatically download huge sound files (such as birds chirping) without asking your permission first. Give 'em a lump of coal for wasting your time.

A partridge in a pear tree
Cuddly Critters of Winterset, Iowa (95 miles northwest of Swan Lake National Wildlife Refuge), sells a pair of Barbary partridges for $30. You can ask them to e-mail information. You're giving just one partridge, so I guess you could plan on a delicious roast partridge with hazelnuts, then perch the other partridge in the pear tree. You've got to plan ahead, though: Gary at Cuddly Critters e-mails that he's out of Barbary partridges until next July.

Now you need a pear tree. Brandt's Fruit Trees in Parker, Wash. (60 miles southeast of Goose Prairie), will be happy to send you one. An example of the D'Anjou variety, 5 to 7 feet tall, would cost $8.55. As it matures, it will bear green fruit.

Not every online seller takes design cues from experienced e-tailers such as Amazon.com. The online retail giants insist on simplicity, usability and fast page-loading. The Brandt's Web site commits sins that you find in many mom 'n' pop shops on the Web: Pages filled with animated pictures, distracting background images and unnecessary Java applets that take a long time to load.

Two turtledoves
Acadiana Aviaries of Franklin, La., is 55 miles southwest of Pigeon, La., which is appropriate, because doves are so similar to pigeons. Acadiana sometimes sells European turtledoves for $150 a pair, but the birds are rarely available. "Very gentle and tame, but requires a large cage or aviary," a description of the bird reads.

This is another mom 'n' pop Web site, with quirky navigation and unnecessary animations. Here's a tip: to freeze distracting animated graphics, tap your keyboard's "escape" key. Usually, this works.

Three French hens
There are two ways to define a "French hen." Is that "French" as in French fry, or French as in French Impressionism? Let's go with "French," because I want to stick with American retailers. Besides, French farmers might go on strike at the drop of a chapeau.

So off I go to the Web site operated by Murray McMurray Hatchery of Webster City, Iowa, just south of Lyons (like the city in France) Creek. You can buy White Rock pullets from the company at $1.80 each. The problem is that the minimum order of chickens is 25. Maybe you can sell 22 to hungry neighbors.

While the Murray McMurray site has been professionally designed, its pages come as slow as, well, Christmas. Get used to it; you'll encounter glacial shopping sites all over the Web.

Four calling birds
You can find lots of calling birds for sale on the Web. Let's choose four varieties, based on cool names, from the Cockatoo Connection of Woodlake, Calif., a short drive from Our Nation's Christmas Tree in King's Canyon National Park.

We'll pick a military macaw ($600), a Major Mitchell cockatoo ($3,500), a Princess of Wales parrot (for just $175, don't expect a Diana look-alike) and a double yellow head amazon ($600). You can order the birds by e-mail.

Do you feel nervous about e-mailing your $4,875 order? Remember that in the unlikely event that a crook intercepts your e-mail, you're liable for only $50 in fraudulent charges.

Five golden rings
After you sprang $3,500 for a cockatoo, it's OK to save coin on the rings. Head to Cheaper Jewelry of Kingston, Pa., and plunk down $175 for five small 14-karat gold rings. They're just $35 each, but it's the thought that counts.

Cheaper Jewelry hired Yahoo to run its Web site. If you have a Yahoo ID (you get one if you sign up for Yahoo e-mail), information about you is entered automatically into an order form when you buy from Yahoo-affiliated stores such as Cheaper Jewelry.

When I tested the jewelry store's site, I was surprised to discover that Yahoo knows my home address, business address and phone number. If  I set up a Yahoo Wallet, I could order stuff from Yahoo-affiliated stores without typing in a credit-card number. Microsoft does something similar with its Passport, and so do independent, sophisticated e-commerce sites such as Amazon and eToys.

Knowing what Web retailers know about you might give you the willies. Or you might feel pleased by the convenience of not having to enter all your personal information every time you buy something over the Web. If you're like me, you feel a little of both, but mostly you like the convenience.

Six geese a-laying
Metzer Farms of Gonzales, Calif. (18 miles south of Salinas, home of the acclaimed Camerata Singers, who perform Christmas choral music annually), sells Chinese geese for $5.80 each, plus 85 cents to determine the sex of each goose. Chinese geese are acclaimed for their egg-laying prowess, according to the Web site.

Now, Metzer doesn't sell adult geese. If you want six adult Canada geese (they aren't as pretty as the Chinese geese), head to Uncle Tom's Farm of Gardiner, Ore., and plunk down $60 each. I would buy from Uncle Tom's Farm because you need grown-up geese to lay eggs.

Metzer's online order form warns that it is not a secure communication. That means that, theoretically, someone could intercept the transmission when you send your credit-card information. I worry more about what a restaurant waiter does with my credit card when he whisks it away.

The major Web retailers set up secure browser pages to transmit sensitive information such as credit-card numbers. You can tell that you're on a secure Web page if you can see a little padlock in the bottom margin of your browser program's window.

Seven swans a-swimming
Surf over to Tropical Birds of Paradise of Grass Valley, Calif. (not far south of Partridge Road), which sells mature male black swans for $375 each.

The order form doesn't include a place for your credit-card number. Maybe you can e-mail it.

Eight maids a-milking
Ta-da! The trouble starts here: you'll have a hard time hiring people over the Internet, and you'll especially have trouble finding eight milk maids. I couldn't find any, although entering the phrase "milk maids" in a search engine yields results that would make you blush.

Nine ladies dancing and ten lords a-leaping
Somewhere, I'll bet you can hire 19 dancers and leapers from one place, maybe a dance studio. But I couldn't get anyone at a dance studio to answer my e-mails. I looked for American ballet companies, but none seemed to offer the possibility of hiring dancers for a private performance.

I'm sure that a gift-giver with plenty of patience and pocket change could find a dance school or ballet corps willing to help. Maybe dance schools will answer my e-mails after this story is published -- too late.

OK, let's say I found some dancers and leapers. To make the men look like lords, I would make them wear powdered wigs ($55 each) from Costume World.

Order a few more regal items and you can dress up your whole family/neighborhood/staff as Lords or Ladies from the grand old Middle Ages and have them cavort through your home/neighborhood/office dancing and leaping.

Costume World has a rental request form that is supposed to e-mail your questions to the store. But if you neglect to fill out all required fields (the Web page doesn't tell you which fields are required) and click the "send" button, you'll get an error page -- and you'll have to type in your information all over again. If only Web retailers would follow the Golden Rule!

Eleven pipers piping
This was the easiest group of performers to find, because bagpipe competitions keep the musical tradition alive in the United States. St. Andrews Presbyterian College in Laurinburg, N.C. (where Fiona Ritchie of National Public Radio's "Thistle and Shamrock" show keeps her archives), has an award-winning pipe band that you could hire.

"The fee for bringing out a pipe band of any sort varies depending on the performance time, etc.," pipe band instructor Bill Caudill writes by e-mail just minutes after I send him an inquiry. "Nonetheless, if you were to hire 11 pipers from St. Andrews and the performance was within a 2-hour radius, we would charge between $750 and $1,000. This is a pretty fair rate and would likely come in with what other bands would charge."

Caudill answers e-mail immediately and the school's Web site is clean and fast. Details like that give the impression that he would be refreshing to do business with.

Twelve drummers drumming
Just as there is a thriving subculture of bagpipe players, a network of drum corps exists, too. The best ones attract young drummers from all over North America and Europe. Among them are the Madison Scouts, based in Madison, Wisc., And its affiliated "brother corps," the Southwind Drum and Bugle Corps in Lexington, Ky.

Pat Seidling, director of Southwind, answers an e-mail message immediately and says it's a "fun question." He then answers the question and more, which makes him seem trustworthy, the bedrock requirement for electronic commerce.

Seidling writes that the Madison Scouts just provided 12 drummers for a nationwide Walgreens TV commercial. The retail chain shelled out $2,400 for a dozen drummers for a day's taping. You would get a better deal.

Seidling writes: "Fee I'd ask you for to provide this service: $2,000, plus a meal provided each member (take us out to dinner or something)."

Just don't take 'em to KFC and buy 'em each a bucket of drumsticks.

-- Posted: Dec. 3, 1999